super hero

The Prototype franchise is built off a power fantasy. The team at Radical Entertainment wants to give players the feeling of being an unstoppable juggernaut of destruction. In the sequel, they still do that, but it will have a twist.

Instead of playing as Alex Mercer, the hero of the original, players take on the role of Sgt. James Heller, a veteran from the Afghanistan war who returns home to find out that Mercer killed his family. A distraught Heller vows to kill Mercer even if the original Prototype is much stronger than he is. It’s a different way of resetting the powers from one game to another. In Metroidgames, Samus always loses her powers in some ridiculous fashion. In Mass Effect 2, BioWare actually kills Commander Shepard and resurrects him to start his powers back from beginning.

Heller will have similar powers as Alex. He can shapeshift and assume other people’s identities and memories. Black tendrils shoot out of him in some instances. He even has a Mercer’s signature arm blade, but Heller’s has a serrated edge to it in acknowledgement to his military background.

I always associate inFamous with GDC. At GDC 2009, I first played the game and interviewed Sucker Punch co-founder Brian Fleming. Now two years later, I’m playing the sequel and getting an overview of its new feature — user-generated levels. It’s an interesting evolution for a game that’s prided itself on being a super hero title built from the ground up as a video game.

When I first played inFamous 2, what struck me the most were the visuals. As much as I liked the first game, it was drab, post-apocalyptic and morose. Suffice to say, it was overwhelmingly dark. On the other hand, the sequel is the opposite. With architecture inspired by New Orleans, the new locale, New Marais, is bright, lustrous and distinct with residents milling about the street and structures that echo the French Quarter.

Along with the new setting, Cole MacGrath sports some new moves and a weapon called the Amp. The protagonist wields it like a baseball bat, and it seems like it allows him to perform little flourishes in combat. After pressing the square button a few times, a meter toward the left charges up and when it hits the limit, players can press the triangle button to perform a slow-motion power move.

If Cole McGrath ever got into a fight with Alex Mercer, I have no doubt that the Prototype hero would win over the underpoweredinFamous one. There would be no contest. Alex could turn his right arm into a giant blade and cover himself in armor, rush over to Cole an turn him into human sushi.

There’s no debate about that. But frankly, the powers of a superhero don’t translate to popularity. The Martian Manhunter is arguably one of the most powerful beings in the D.C. Universe, but he hasn’t captured everyone’s imagination the way Batman has. There’s something in his alienness that makes him less likable than a billionaire who happens to dress in a cowel and fights crime at night. We can’t relate to a Martian, but we can imagine having a beer with Bruce Wayne.

Maybe it’s the underdog quality or perhaps it’s the story and characters that inhabit Empire City, but I prefer the carefully paced and richer inFamous compared to wanton destruction and mystery of Prototype.